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Cardiff chairman Dalman pledges Mackay support

Cardiff City chairman Mehmet Dalman insists the board will give Malky Mackay the support he needs to keep the club in the Premier League.

Published

9 December 2013

After a positive start to their first top-flight campaign for 51 years, the Welsh club have suffered a slump in form that has dragged them towards the wrong end of the table.

A 2-0 defeat at resurgent Crystal Palace on Saturday left Cardiff in 16th place, as they extended their unwanted record to five league games without a win.

With a tough run of fixtures coming up that will see them take on West Brom, Southampton and fellow strugglers Sunderland at home before the turn of the year, as well as a trip to in-form Liverpool, questions have been raised as to whether the club will need to strengthen in January to avoid being sucked into a relegation dogfight.

Yet Dalman has revealed that the board have always been fully united in their desire to give boss Mackay their backing, and that is not about to change.

"As a board, our responsibility is to support the club - the club is the focus," he told Perform.

"I think if Malky were stood here he would agree we've already given him quite a lot of support when we were in the Championship when he came in.

"The owner of the club, Vincent Tan, has pumped in quite a lot of money over the last year - I think we were the seventh-highest spenders in the transfer market (in the close-season), just above Manchester United.

"So from that perspective, we are fully committed to the amount of money we have available, and of course in the future we will see how things go.

"In any business you have to be prudent in any planning you do. At the end of the day, we're here to support the club, including the manager, and run it as successfully and profitably as we can."

Asked specifically what funds might be available to bolster the squad in the next transfer window, Dalman insisted that it would be down to Mackay to draw up his list of potential targets first.

"I hope (there will be money available)," he added. "We haven't had that discussion. It really is something the manager has to decide.

"It's his decision for him to tell us what he needs, then it's up to me to set the budgets that may be there, or may not be there as the case may be, and we will manage it going forward.

"We have a strong team; we're fully united and we're committed to getting everyone on the same page. He (Mackay) is always knocking on my door, but not necessarily for money."